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Student Media

Students 'beat the clock' to raise trip funds creatively

Monday, April 3, 2006

They raised just $67. But SCSU theatre and film majors who
participated in a 24-hour fundraiser that tested their creativity and
skills plan to make it a semi-annual event.

About 15 students took it upon themselves to create a play
– from scratch – and produce it for a live
audience. According to senior Grant Merges, whose hometown is Hopkins,
they decided to do the unusual fundraiser in lieu of other, less
pertinent, money raisers: “We just thought it’d be
more relevant than, say, cleaning the hockey rink.”

The clock started at 8 on a Friday evening, from which point
students determined the contents of their play, created
writer/director/actor teams, chose a designer for props, lighting and
sound, then worked all night and all of Saturday to create and rehearse
a production they performed at 8 that evening. "We don't
expect to get any sleep," students had said beforehand, though
eventually a few sprawled out on sleeping bags they’d brought
to the theatre in the Performing Arts Center on campus.

SCSU theatre and film majors conducted the unique event, they
said, for fun, experience and fundraising. They also invited the public
to take in any or all of the creative process as well as the
production, a comedy called “24 Hour Show,” that
capped the students’ all-night, all-day adventure.

Ticket sales from the performance were used to help send members
of the SCSU Dramatic Action Club to the Kennedy Center American College
Theatre Festival in January.